A Gandhi for our times: Reclaiming ahimsa and truth in a violent world

Mahatma Gandhi occupies a singular place in world history as the rare leader who not only theorised but also practised non-violence as a political, philosophical, and spiritual principle. His interventions and approaches during turbulent times—most notably his experience as a young lawyer in South Africa, his response to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and British imperialism—offer unique insights into ethical leadership amid global disorder.

Gandhi’s refusal to exploit the British preoccupation during World War II, his opposition to totalitarian regimes, and his capacity to transcend personal bitterness despite personal suffering set him apart from most anti-colonial figures of the twentieth century. Today, as wars rage in Ukraine, Gaza, and many parts of the world, the relevance of Gandhi’s creed is more than a matter of curiosity; it is a fundamental ethical challenge to a world adrift in violence, polarisation, and institutional paralysis.

Gandhi’s unique moral stance stood on the pillars of ahimsa (non-violence), satyagraha (truth-force or soul-force), and reconciliation. His 1939 letter to Adolf Hitler, imploring the dictator to avoid war, exemplifies the courage it takes to appeal to the conscience of even the most intransigent adversary. Although he recognised Hitler and Mussolini as embodiments of tyrannical violence, Gandhi’s appeals were rooted not in naiveté but in faith that even the hardest heart might eventually be moved by truth and love.

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His principled support for the British in World War II, despite a long history of colonial oppression, emerged from the same commitment: it was not acceptable, he believed, to advance Indian independence on the back of other people’s suffering or subjugation, nor to take opportunistic advantage of the world’s misery. Colonial injustice was real, but so too was the horror posed by fascism and Nazism. His stance affirms an essential humility and magnanimity—a refusal to descend into the logic of revenge and retributive justice.

Gandhi for the Modern World

How might Gandhi see the present world, wracked by persistent conflict and the failures of the international system to restrain violence? His verdict would likely be unsparing. The proliferation of hyper-nationalism, the return of authoritarianism, and the normalisation of violence on all sides would be, for him, evidence not merely of political error but of a deep spiritual disorder. He would see that the planetary scale of conflict—the wars in Ukraine, the ongoing violence between Hamas and Israel, the collapse of trust in international institutions—suggests a civilisation unanchored from truth, compassion, and a willingness to listen inwardly and compromise outwardly. Gandhi would not have denied the legitimacy of national, religious, or historical grievances, but would have demanded that the means used to pursue justice never undermine its ends.

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Transposing Gandhi’s approach to conflicts like the Ukraine war or the Hamas-Israel confrontation provides compelling, if controversial, possibilities. Gandhi would argue for ceaseless, courageous dialogue—between governments, peoples, and civil society—refusing to demonise any group as beyond the pale. He would advocate mass non-violent resistance against occupying forces or unjust laws, not through reciprocal violence but through peaceful protest, non-cooperation, and principled disobedience. In Ukraine, he might have urged Ukrainians and their allies to assert their sovereignty with non-violent disruption rather than armed confrontation, focusing on global mobilisation for sanctions, protest, and mediation.

Simultaneously, he would have called upon Russians to resist the war through conscientious objection and civil disobedience. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, instead of rocket attacks or military reprisals, Gandhi would press for coordinated non-violent action—marches, economic non-cooperation, international appeals, and the relentless telling of truth on both sides. He would argue that only by refusing the logic of war can the arc of events begin to bend toward reconciliation instead of perpetuating endless cycles of revenge.

Central to Gandhi’s envisioned method is satyagraha—the insistence on truth, a philosophy that encompasses moral courage, active nonviolence, and patient suffering for the sake of justice. Satyagraha is not mere passivity but “a relentless search for truth and a determined insistence on the power of love and nonviolence in social struggle.”

Applied to today’s conflicts, it invites not withdrawal but the cultivation of moral force as a counterweight to brute power. Non-cooperation with unjust regimes or violent actors, dignified civil disobedience in the face of oppression, and the formation of “constructive programmes,” or efforts to create alternative institutions and societies based on justice, remain the tools he would urge. Gandhi did not guarantee that non-violent struggle would always succeed in the short term, but maintained that violence only deepens the wounds of conflict, enshrining injustice even in the name of justice.

A Gandhi for International Peace

In a world dominated by hard power, can ideals of ahimsa and satyagraha still matter, or are they relics of another time? Gandhi’s answer would be uncompromising: ethical means are inseparable from ethical ends. Every act of violence triggered in the name of justice begets further violence; cycles of war and retaliation never truly resolve the underlying human predicament. The world’s most intractable problems—terrorism, occupation, ethnic hatred—cannot be solved by the same machinery of violence and vengeance that produced them.

Gandhi’s genius was to frame moral action as an act of creative imagination; when old methods fail, one must envision a new moral international order that does not perpetuate injustice. The activism of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu is living testimony to the power of Gandhian strategies; their relevance endures wherever ordinary people confront militarism, occupation, or tyranny with dignity and discipline.

For today’s world, the Gandhian principle most needed is ahimsa: not merely the refusal to kill or injure, but the active cultivation of love, empathy, and the recognition of shared humanity across national, religious, and cultural lines. Alongside ahimsa, satyagraha’s insistence on truth—uncomfortable, inconvenient, but ultimately liberating—offers hope for breaking through the propaganda and polarisation of contemporary geopolitics. In an era ruled by disinformation and the instrumentalisation of grievance, truth-telling and active, visible nonviolence are forms of resistance that carry global resonance.

The question—“Does the world need a Gandhi today?”—is more than rhetorical. Gandhi does not invite imitation in the form of personality cults or dogmatic following; instead, he reminds humanity that the most significant revolutions are not merely technological or political, but moral and spiritual. A Gandhian practice of peace will always look impractical to those enmeshed in cycles of hatred and fear. But the alternative—the continued normalisation of war, repression, and dehumanisation—offers, as the twentieth century has demonstrated, only ruin and sorrow.

If Gandhi were alive today, he would likely warn against despair, cynicism, or retreat. Instead, he would challenge society to recommit itself to building peace not by denying conflict but by transforming its terms. This would mean reforming institutions to embody justice and transparency, empowering grassroots movements for non-violent change, and demanding of leaders the courage to listen and the humility to compromise. Gandhi’s voice would urge a return to moral seriousness—a belief that a world healed of violence is not a utopian fantasy, but the inevitable result of millions who refuse to surrender to the logic of hatred.

The tools Gandhi wielded—ahimsa, satyagraha, and reconciliation—remain as available and urgent as ever. They invite each generation to imagine and realise a world where difference is not settled on the battlefield, but at the negotiating table, in the public square, and within the open hearts of human beings. The tragic persistence of war in today’s world is not proof of the failure of Gandhi’s ideals but a summons to recover and reapply them, with patience, creativity, and courage, to the unresolved crises of our own time.

Prof Namita A Nimbalkar teaches in the Department of Philosophy, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, and is a Member, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi. The views expressed in this article are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.